


Blood of the Animal [ON HOLD]

by coconutcluster



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: AU, M/M, Prinxiety - Freeform, Still, TW: Violence, all eventually but, logicality - Freeform, remile - Freeform, tw: abuse, tw: catholicism, tw: religion
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-07
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-06-23 02:49:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15596562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coconutcluster/pseuds/coconutcluster
Summary: Roman Kensington-Affini is a model student, a model friend, and a model son (of sorts). Artistic, charming, and intelligent in his own creative way, he cruises through his life with friends beside him and a bright future ahead of him - until the day Burkhaust guards appear on his doorstep, ready to haul him off to the Catholic “rehabilitation center for troubled teens” without so much as a glance, let alone a fair trial. Roman has to wait three weeks before he’s released for a false instate; he soon realizes that getting out might be replaced as his top priority by something much more immediate: surviving.





	Blood of the Animal [ON HOLD]

  The heat really shouldn’t have bothered him by now, but Roman was ready to kill a man under the oh-so-generous Florida sun if it meant he could get some AC immediately.

  Sure, he wasn’t usually one for violence - not that you should ask his first grade playdate with a black eye that - but walking a mile home from an already-sweltering high school with far too many windows was getting on his nerves more than he cared to articulate (not that there was anyone around him to articulate it to); all he really wanted was a popsicle in his hand, or maybe an inch of snow, so he could finally remember what it felt like to  _ not  _ want to crawl out of your own skin to cool down. 

  Roman finally turned the corner to his neighborhood, which was filled to the brim with wide brick houses and landscaping that was far too expensive for the final product (you’d think, with the amount of rain and sunshine in Florida, people would think to invest in  _ real  _ flowers), and started down the blistering sidewalk to the gray house near the edge of the cul-de-sac. His eyes practically watered when he saw the fans through its window - or maybe that was just sweat dripping down his face - and his energy spiked as he hiked his backpack further over his shoulders to jog to the door. 

  Just as he reached the porch, key in hand, he heard a voice call over his shoulder, “You should probably pick that up.”

  Roman glanced behind, where the voice had come from, and saw a boy about his age lounging on a set of porch steps across the street, a beanie pulled low over his brunet fringe. He stared back unblinkingly.

  “Excuse me?” Roman called, frowning. 

  The boy jerked his head towards the sidewalk Roman had stepped off of. Roman followed his movement and found a stray water bottle abandoned on the cement; a quick glance over his shoulder told him his backpack was unzipped. 

  “That’s littering,” the boy continued, his mouth pulled into a slitted smirk; something about his eyes seemed uneven to Roman, but he couldn’t see exactly what it was from his vantage point. “It’s a crime.” 

  “...I’m aware.” Roman hopped down the steps, scooping the bottle from the ground and shoving it back in his bag. He threw a pinched look at the boy across the street, eyes flickering across his lanky figure disdainfully. “Thanks for the tip, Einhorn.” 

  The boy cocked his ever so slightly to the side. “No problem. Maybe be careful about that in the future, though - never know who’s watching.”

  Roman blinked at him, his face curling into a sneer. “Okay, then. Have fun harassing more random people,” he said as he turned back to his door and pushed it open, muttering a quick, “Weirdo,” under his breath before he stepped inside. 

  The cool air hit him in a tsunami breeze, brushing his bangs across his forehead, a chill racking his spine as he dropped his backpack beside the door with a heavy thud. 

  “Rem?” he called, peeking into the living room by the curling staircase; his voice echoed back to him untouched. “Gia?” Nothing.

  He was used to having the house to himself - Remy was so often out with ‘friends,’ and Giavanna worked late most days of the week - but his stomach was heavy as he stepped into the den, and he had half a mind to pull the curtains tight, though he couldn’t imagine why. 

  He flopped onto the couch instead, whipping his phone out of his pocket and pulling up his messages.

 

**Me:** Remmmmmmmm where are you

 

  Roman raised an eyebrow as the message sat at ‘Delivered’ for a moment - he didn’t think he’d ever seen Remy without his phone in his hand - but sure enough, three dots popped up on his screen after a few seconds, bouncing idly as Roman watched and waited. 

**Rem:** out

**Me:** I presumed, but where?

**Me:** I’m borrrrrrred

**Rem:** i’m with em??? do you need smth or

**Me:** Ooooohhhh, Em?

**Rem:** h o n e y

**Rem:** jealousy is so not cute on you go kiss ur pillow or smth and keep it away from me mkay

**Me:** ??? Everything is cute on me??? 

  Roman snorted as Remy sent a picture; his eyebrows were raised behind shining aviator sunglasses as he flipped off the camera, and Roman could just see Emile’s smiling, freckled face in the corner of the frame, his tortoiseshell glasses reflecting the sun and blocking his eyes as dimples whittled into his cheeks. 

**Me:** Rude

**Rem:** :)

**Rem:** can i drink my coffee in peace pls

**Me:** Fine whatever

**Me:** Didn’t you tell your mom you’d be home early today tho?? She seemed pretty adamant abt it last week

**Rem:** ??? idk

**Rem:** is she home?

**Me:** No, I’m just curious.

**Rem:** oh my bad nancy drew ill make sure to doublecheck with you next time i wanna get starbucks

**Me:** w o w

**Rem:** listen sweets i gotta go k

**Rem:** tell me if you get to second base with that pillow :*

**Me:** Fvck off 

 

  Remy didn’t respond (not that Roman really expected him to). 

  Roman tossed his phone onto the cushion beside him, chewing on the inside of his cheek as unease washed over him once more - his mind flitted idly through things to do until Remy or his mother got home, but all that came up was his myriad of unfinished projects, and he didn’t have enough energy to even  _ pretend  _ he’d actually work on those. 

  He draped himself across the sofa and stared at the ceiling. 

  His thoughts drifted back to the kid on the steps outside; something about him seemed familiar to Roman, but he couldn’t quite figure out why. He couldn’t remember ever seeing him at school, and he didn’t really seem like the type for the neighborhood, with his ripped jeans and dirty converse - he had on an awful lot of yellow, though… maybe he was a Burkhaust Scout? 

  Roman huffed a wave out of his face indignantly at that. A Scout in his neighborhood felt unlikely; he’d only heard of one kid ever getting taken in this part of town - Daniel something (his own  _ mom  _ reported him - Roman couldn’t even imagine what that must have felt like when he returned, although he’d never actually seen the boy come back; they must have moved neighborhoods. Social stigma was quite the travel motivator.) - long before Roman had come to the Affini’s, and the boy, as odd and out-of-place as he seemed, didn’t strike him as an actor of any sort. 

_   Probably just waiting for a friend,  _ he finally settled on, ending his own anxieties with a decisive nod, and that was that.

  He went back to his phone almost instantly, scrolling through his Instagram aimlessly as the minutes ticked by. As he landed on his post of a painting he’d finished for art recently, the homework nestled in his backpack by the door crossed his mind, but he didn’t particularly want to face the bright red  _ D  _ on the math test beside it, so he quickly pushed the idea away; he focused instead on the picture - it was Roman’s entry for the Burkhaust awareness campaign (as if anyone didn’t already know what it was). He’d painted a golden chalice against a burgundy background, complete with the church’s signature crown of thorns draped over the chalice’s lip. (He’d won second place, right behind a scale model of the church itself - he was bitter to this day, but nevermind that.) 

  His hands itched to hold a brush right then; Giavanna had banned paint in the house after he and Remy had an…  _ accident  _ a few months back (red paint doesn’t scrub off white walls easily), so he was forced to wait until the school studio was open before he could release his creative whimsy with full force. His sketchbook had long since run void of empty space for his midnight bouts of creativity; he’d nearly resorted to carving into his wooden bedpost for a canvas. 

  A knock at the door pulled him from his thoughts.

  Roman’s head snapped up, and he glanced out the window - there was a single black car in front of the house, one he recognized from somewhere, but he couldn’t quite place his finger on it. He stood and strode to the door, peeking through the peephole, but it was blocked by something. The door swung open the minute he began to turn the knob; his stomach dropped. 

  Three men stood towering over him on the porch, all dressed in identical black clothing, a mustard-yellow armband and embroidered crown of thorns across their biceps. They stared down at Roman unblinkingly, their eyes empty with careful blankness.

  “R. Affini?” the one closest to him said. His droning voice bent the question into a flat statement more than anything; Roman blinked. 

  “...Yes?” he replied slowly, his gaze flickering between each man as they nodded to each other. “Can I help you?” They didn’t respond as the first man took out a small, handheld tablet, and began swiping at its screen, tilted just enough so Roman couldn’t see. The boy cleared his throat instead. “Mrs. Affini’s not home right now- would you like me to leave a message?”

   “That won’t be necessary.”

   A frown pulled at Roman’s lips as the two men behind the first started to head back to their car - Roman realized suddenly where he recognized it from, just as the first man grabbed his arm and yanked him onto the porch without another word. 

  “Hey!” Roman yelped, pulling back; the man seemed inconvenienced at best, his mouth a taut line and eyes hard. “What are you doing?!”

  “You’re under juvenile apprehension by order of the Cathedral of Burkhaust Rehabilitation Center,” the man answered drily, a forced line, practiced and recited beyond empathy or mistake and spat back at Roman like a stream of acid in his face. 

  “What?” he breathed. “No, I- I didn’t do anything!” He pulled at his arm, trying to wrangle free of the guard’s iron grip as they fast approached the black car ahead. “Let  _ go _ , I didn’t do anything!”

  The man stared straight ahead as he dragged a squirming Roman beside him, fingers curled tightly around his arms. Roman glanced around wildly for a neighbor, a friend, an  _ ally _ to vouch for him, to make a scene, anything - his eyes landed suddenly on the boy from earlier, still lounging on the steps across the street. 

  “Hey!” Roman called to him, craning his neck to see over the roof of the car in front of him, “Hey, you!” The boy watched the scene before him with a drooping frown, but he made no move to get up, and Roman’s voice began to crack as the guard pushed on his shoulders to force him into the car, “Help me,  _ please _ ! Someone, help-  _ let me go! _ ”

   The door slammed in his face. 

  He crawled across the seat as one of the other men took the one beside him, and he pressed his palms to the window. The boy on the steps found his eyes; he seemed to mirror Roman’s confusion, his eyebrows drawn tightly over his odd, uneven eyes as the car began to roll down the street, his lips barely parted as if he was tempted to call out. 

  Roman kept his gaze as his house grew smaller, as the synthetic flowers in his yard faded in his vision, as the boy’s beanie vanished as the rest of him did, until everything Roman knew had all but disappeared completely.

 The car ride was thick with silence, full of clenched fists and heavy, deliberate breaths on Roman’s end, strained efforts to repress the screaming in his mind. He’d tried to fit the puzzles pieces of his arrest together more times than he could count in the twenty minutes they’d been driving, but nothing came up sensible - he’d never even missed a homework assignment without a teacher’s excuse, let alone committed a report-worthy crime. 

  He turned to the guard beside him.

  “Sir,” he started, his voice dripping with pseudo-enthusiasm; the guard didn’t even blink. “How much longer until we get to the church?”

  The man glanced to him briefly. “Five minutes.”

  Roman hummed in response, turning back to his window for a second before spinning around once more. “Is it really surrounded by trees?” he asked brightly.

  “Yes.”

  “What kind?”

  “Oak.”

  “...That’s all?”

  “Yes.”

  Roman sighed, propping his chin in the palms of his hands. “Is it nice?”

  “It’s a cathedral.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question.” The man didn’t respond. 

  Roman pursed his lips and turned back to his window, ruminating a storm in his head. The car fell back into its tense silence.

  “Do you like working there?” he asked quietly. 

  He glanced over his shoulder to see the guard’s mouth contorted into a deep frown - something in Roman cheered at the man’s surprise, at his slightly tilted head and furrowed brow. The guard in front of him, the one who shoved Roman into the car in the first place, glanced back sharply at the man, his eyes shining with something dark. The car screeched to a stop suddenly.

  The door at Roman’s side flung open and a hand was around his arm once more, pulling him out of his seat and onto an uneven gravel road, oak trees blocking his vision from every angle. The two other guards stepped out of the car, striding mechanically down the path and around a corner. Roman’s jaw practically fell as the trees cleared around them.

  The turrets of the cathedral crawled towards the sky in sharp layers, edges spiked with blooming stone roses and jagged trim. The windows were draped in lithic panes that stretched across openings like prison bars; thin poles stood flattened against the church’s walls, cut off and forced together at odd intervals, and empty crosses hollowed the arches that loomed above all else. The whole building seemed to radiate a cold light, an intricate, dangerous beauty that sang a siren’s tune of wide eyes and deep cuts. 

  A hand landed on Roman’s shoulder with a heavy thud that nearly knocked him off balance, and a low voice leered.

  “Welcome to Burkhaust.”


End file.
